To feel aggrieved that I've lost a friendship over anti vax

[VisaGeezer]

I've recently had a fall out with a friend of about 11 years due to not agreeing with/challenging her anti vax opinions

We don't see each other often these days and I wasn't aware of these opinions before. They include;

Covid vaccine is killing young people, who are dropping dead at rates never seen before.

It's causing miscarriages.

It's causing lots of health problems.

Pziser lied and said it prevented transmission. (I checked this and they actually didn't).

The World Economic Forum (?) is taking over.

MMR vaccine causes Autism.

The Anish community doesn't take MMR vaccine and had no autism.

Various stuff about Trans issues (kids being transed) which actually agreed with.

Pharmaceutical companies are all evil and have political, economic etc agendas.

COVID was created in a lab, initially in the US, moved to China due to safety issues etc.

Any data released by anyone refuting the claims about COVID has been bought, is false etc

Doctors who said unvaccinated ppl were more likely to end up in ICU were bought/under the thumb and lying.

The Member of palace staff (subsequently "retired") who questioned the black lady during the event there about her origins and moved/touche her hair was - due to age etc - not being racist or offensive ..... I said grabbing and moving her hair combined with the questioning about her origin, nationality etc was extremely intrusive. She said it wasn't, grabbing someone's crotch would be extremely intrusive, I said that would be sexual assault, not "extremely intrusive".

During this conversation my frustration, exasperation and lack of agreement became more and more obvious ....she told me I needed to read about things, do my research before dismissing these things etc etc . It escalated to me walking off.

I have since apologised for walking off, with no response. I feel the friendship is over.

An I right to feel aggrieved, should I have been more tactful? Would the friendship have blown up over stuff like this anyway?

She is an idiot, and personally I couldn't be friends with an idiot. I can be polite (ish) at work or gatherings but not friends.

Also to the people who say "Agree to disagree", you can't really do this about important things. You can't agree to disagree about gravity, or whether cancer is bad for you, because of reality.

I have a friend who is an anti vaxxer, Trump supporter etc, everything I'm not. We're not close friends but our kids are. She told me recently that she's lost every one of her other friends because of differences of opinions. It was so sad. I despise everything she believes in and she knows that, but I can still have a coffee with her, a chat about the kids, about their house move etc. It's what adults do.

I shouldn't smile, but I am trying to retain my sense of humour despite posting on MN - and it is coming up to Christmas anyway....

But I am afraid that this friendship can't survive this sort of disparity. The only way to retain any relationship with the terminally insane is to smile sweetly and do a sort of nod (that Indian "nod that is a shake of the head" is perfect) and never, ever engage. Or always have a convenient exit line - "Oh dear I forgot I left the milk pan on".

In our local park we have one of these. He's lovely, he really is. Such a nice chap and would genuinely help anyone. But he subscribes to every conspiracy theaory going, and on occasions just hazarding a "good morning" is risky. One day in the summer I stupidly went past "good morning" and ventured an extra "isn't it a lovely day?" Twenty minutes later we had covered chem trails, nanobots in vaccines, and mind control chemicals....

But what made me smile? A few weeks after that I noticed a couple of people who looked quite official in the park with clipboards etc. And he had them cornered. They had glazed eyes and fixed grins on their faces, and were nodding intently despite the very obvious panicked look of "how do we get away" on their faces. He still had then 20 minutes later, and 15 minutes after that (I should say - we are dogwalkers). The next lap I did, they'd escaped and stopped me - cringe, the poor deveils were doing a survey and promotional activity for Covid vaccine take up!!!!!

Or they send you to a link of a facebook status made by a random person, who quotes a doctor who had his licence removed several decades ago because of his dangerous actions and comments.

I've never once had any of them provide real evidence, or peer reviewed studies. Even things they think are 'gotcha' moments, are just their inability to understand and interpret the information they read.

Conspiracy theories tend to gain momentum following any kind of social or global upheaval and rapid change, such as the recent pandemic The Black Death in Europe was no different - guess which ‘outsider’, non-Christian community were accused of poisoning the wells and causing the pandemic in the 14th century?

it’s worth bearing in mind that historically, when populations no longer feel their leaders can be trusted for whatever reason, when a feeling of disenfranchisement sweeps a significant proportion of an impoverished population, when wealth gaps widen to such an extent that the people feel cheated, when individuals feel alienated, all these factors can come together and become fertile ground for this kind of thinking to take root.

The gross insensitivity in respect of OP having lost her Fallopian tubes means there's rather more to it than that.

Even things they think are 'gotcha' moments, are just their inability to understand and interpret the information they read.

Yes.

Rob Roos (who does seem like a bit of a twat anyway) questioning the Pfizer employees who confirmed - not revealed - confirmed they'd not tested the vaccine for transmission or been asked to; seemed to be mostly making the point that governments had gone with a "vaccines reduce transmission" pr exercise, not on very solid facts.

(It was shown in studies done after it was rolled out that it did initially but not so much with subsequent variants. I don't know if he knew that and was being a twat or ....).

This "reveal" was cited as Pfizer being caught out; they weren't.

If the reveal was that governments didn't base their "get it to reduce transmission" message on any Pfizer research (and they didn't require that from Pfizer) ... That's correct. But that was never claimed anyway.

It was a risk reduction decision on my part, not me being subjected to an ectopic pregnancy or cyst or worse ... But I was still taken aback by her not remembering anything about it (there was a pathology (not sure if correct) mistake that was upsetting afterward, I discussed it with her).

And we're both about 46; how can you not realise it's unlikely a 46 yr old would be TTC.

There are some crazy theories out there but WEF isn't a conspiracy.
They exist and have regular meetings. Have you heard of Davos?
Whatever you think of WEF, there are questions around their agenda of having profit making corporations having more say in world politics.

As for the other theories, yes some people have died after having the vaccine, there have been other side effects. Obviously most people are fine.

Some pharmaceutical companies are very profit driven. My friend was campaigning in the US because an epipen had gone up from around $70 to around $700.

I thought covid being created in a lab is an acceptable theory currently.

The conspiracy theories aren't always complete delusional. The truth is often somewhere in the middle.

It was like all pertinent facts went out of her head in her eagerness to claim the side effects of the vaccine and why ppl should be worried/anti vax.

The Herd is a very good book and definitely worth a read. However, it deals with legitimate reasons for vaccinating and for vaccine hesitancy that we are all already aware of. It does not deal with batshit conspiracy theories. We will never, ever get through to the people who believe that a global cabal invented Covid so that they could inject us all with HIV (I know someone who genuinely believes this). I stopped wasting my breath about 2 years ago. They are symptomatic of a massive mental health crisis and evidence of the damage unrestricted access to the internet can do to seemingly intelligent people.

Unfortunately, people do die from blood clots or from previously unsuspected heart problems or aneurysms or all sorts of unexpected causes, even when they're very young. Some of those people will have had a vaccination not long before. The two things are not necessarily connected, but even when they are, we take risks in life all the time, and for most of us the risk of something going wrong after a vaccination is much, much smaller than the risk of catching the nasty disease we're being immunised against.

Why get openly frustrated and walk off. That’s rude. The friendship might blow up anyway if you act like that.

What I find remarkable is that, of the people i know who have become anti vax since the advent of covid, have suddenly become anti EVERY vax. Not just covid. And whereas they didn't subscribe to conspiracy theories before, they now seem to believe all of them. New world order, covid a hoax, vaccines all gonna track and kill us, chem trails, the Queen really died years ago etc etc. All of them. It's just so bizarre.

I can understand people's hesitancy with the covid vaccine at first. It was new. It felt really quick (though this was down to massively higher funding than usual, cutting the time down). I cam understand that initial hesitancy. But now? And suddenly deciding all vaccines are bad?! Just so illogical.

Problem is, with vaccinations, trust has gone for some.
I myself am hesitant. Whereas before[except MMR] I didnt really think twice. I had flu vaccination for the first time this year. Not entirely comfortable with having had it. But on balance decided it was hopefully best that, rather than get flu or a nasty flu like virus. Have had flu before and it was not good.

Surely everyone knows by now that the MMR-autism supposed link was COMPLETELY debunked years and years ago?

I am convinced that the rejection of science and medicine will be the downfall of civilization.

I agree with this. I’m pro-vaccine but I reserve a little skepticism generally. I don’t think it’s outlandish, for example, to suspect the virus might have originated in a lab.

I have relatives who believe most conspiracy theories. Whatever you say or don’t say makes no difference whatsoever. It seems so similar to what happens to you in a cult where you get brainwashed.

On top of that, people’s beliefs generally affect a lot of things about them. Yes you can have a cordial relationship if you are both somewhat reasonable, but I don’t see myself feeling close. I think people tend to experience the most nurturing friendships with people who share similar values.

This.

Sadly people who go down the conspiracy route tend to get sucked into a whole raft of them, QAnon, David Icke, Covid, Alex Jones and so on. You can't argue with them and if you go and "do your research" you will have been looking in the wrong place and have been brainwashed by the MSM.

When you look at the quality of the people in positions of power and authority these days it partly explains why people look to these conspiracy theories. There can sometimes be an element of truth in some of them which is probably why people who seem to be otherwise sensible can get sucked in.

Unfortunately the internet has made it so much easier to connect with others who have the same views.

I wonder if OP's friend has mixed up the World Economic Forum (legitimate organisation) with the New World Order (batshit conspiracy theory which argues that a shadowy elite force is trying to implement a totalitarian world government.

I share those fears. When Gove said 'people are tired of experts' or whatever it was during the Brexit campaign, I was aghast. Experts can get things wrong and in the past there was too little questioning of people in authority, too little scepticism, but to reject the whole of science because they haven't solved every problem or always been perfect is such a backwards step. I'm particularly upset about the Green Party, as their entire existence is about tackling environmental problems. How do we know those issues exist? Science. So on the one hand they are saying that we must listen to scientists and trust what they say, but on the other hand they have swallowed whole what the gender ideologues are saying and turning their backs on established facts about male and female physiology. It's baffling to me.

I am convinced that the rejection of science and medicine will be the downfall of civilization.

I don’t know. I do think we need to be a lot more sceptical going forward.

Just look at ectolife. Sure it’s only a concept but the idea that science and medicine is could only possibly improve life and never do anything untoward or a step too far is naive.

@LemonSwan I don't think anyone has claimed that science and medicine don't at times do things that turn out wrong - it's obvious that this happens. Every time it does, processes are tightened up and improved - the thalidomide scandal could not happen now. However, other things could.

Doesn't mean we should suddenly be sceptical of everything that is new or place our trust in FB memes.

Doesn't mean we should suddenly be sceptical of everything that is new

I think we should definitely maintain a healthy scepticism of anything new. Otherwise it's just blindly believing everything we're told.

I don't know if any of you watch Debunk the Funk on YT. Dr Dan Wilson interviewed a known anti-vaxxer ('Tim Truth') last week and honestly there were so many absolutely cringe-worthy moments in it. I admire how Dr Wilson was so calm and let the other guy talk about what he wanted (although Wilson tried to get him to stay on one point at a time so he could address them clearly).

When the interview was about halfway through the chap being interviewed (someone called 'Tim Truth') said he doubted antibodies were real and 'are they really Y-shaped like Wiki says they are?' It became clear after that point, if it wasn't at the outset, that here was someone who knew absolutely nothing about science (nothing wrong with that in itself) but was completely unwilling to accept ANY actual facts that have been established a long time. At the end, Dr Wilson encouraged him to read up more about antibodies, from the scientific papers where they were first described.

I hope he will do some reading, but honestly once someone is that far down the rabbit hole, I don't know what it would take to bring them back.

Doesn't mean we should suddenly be sceptical of everything that is new

It also means that we should be able to take on the varied scientific views.
Take for example natural immunity to covid. It's ridiculous that it was completely dismissed initially, everyone was pressured to take vaccines even if they'd had barely any symptoms from covid itself, and now I've seen research saying natural immunity is more protective than the vaccine.

They used the transmission argument which doesn't seem to hold any water any more.